SamSaid!

THE HAMMER

     Tom Delay is the Majority Leader in the US House of Representatives. A Texas Republican, he is a hard nosed legislator who is both Pro-Republican and Anti-Democrat. It is hard to tell which category motivates him the most. Right now he is in the gunsights of the Democrats over some Delay wheeling and dealing that are questionable  —  if not illegal or at least ethically suspect. That doesn't make him a whole lot different than many others of our elected Congressional representatives.

     Faily recently,  Delay engineered a congressional re-districting in Texas that resulted in 5 more Republican seats in the House. That success immediately placed a bullseye on Tom's chest. Personally, I think he has made some highly questional if not downright stupid decisions  — such as paying his wife and daughter over $500,000 for “work” done on his re-election campaign, and there are questions about the financing of some of his Congressional boondoggles. Dumb. Now the Democrats look like wolves attacking raw meat. Without a real legislative agenda or constructive issue on which to campaign, Delay is now the target. 

     But the Hammer is one tough customer. He will not go down without a bitter fight. Delay has a lot of House IOU's to cash in. Despite all the battering from the Democrats and the left wing press, the best bet is that Delay will weather the storm. If he does, his memory will be very long. His reputation is well earned.

ARNOLD BLINKED

     With much fanfare, Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his intentions to take four issues directly to Cailfornia voters in the form of ballot initiatives. He did so since it was a forgone conclusion that he would win no support from the Democrat controlled State Assembly. The four issues were mandatory spending caps and controls, revised teacher tenure plus merit pay, re-districting of the State elective offices, and reform of the public employe pension system. Underlying all of this is the financial mess in which the State finds itself.

     Last week, Arnold blinked. He pulled the pension reform issue off the list. Could be that his close advisors urged that he do so since he may have bitten off more than he can chew. Better to back off and fight another day. Translated,  that means that he couldn't win against the powerful opposition of the well-funded labor unions and the Democrats. At least right now.

     Many believe that Arnold has a lot of good arguments going for him on the pension issue since the costs are clearly out of control and will continue to get worse. But he didn't make the case very well, and the Unions beat him to the punch with quick and dirty TV ads. Now is swimming upstream. If the big issue is restoring fiscal sanity to the State budget, the abandonment of pension reform is a huge step backwards. To put it another way, without pension reform, it is virtually impossible to achieve budgetary control of State spending.

     Maybe he will try again in 2006, but that is a long way off, and Arnold's popularity is waning. The brass ring doesn't come around very often. I hope he hasn't missed it.